Have to Have It (13 page)

At the bar where she'd purchased her iced tea (well, Evelyn had purchased it, since Kiley told them to put it on Evelyn's tab. That had been her deal with Platinum, though Evelyn hadn't
said anything about it at all), she'd recognized Eddie Murphy with two young African American women in white crocheted bikinis, so stunningly beautiful that they didn't look real. Various players from the L.A. Lakers—white, black, and Latino, all of them six foot eight or taller—were laughing loudly from their towel-covered chaises.

She sipped her tea and enjoyed the heady scent from the eucalyptus trees soaring high above her, the planters nestled in circular cutouts in the aqua-tiled path.

Kiley was just about to depart when she noticed a thin, blond woman—was there any other kind in Los Angeles, she wondered—staring at her intently from the far end of the breezeway She wore a sage green Tracy Reese tunic, Juicy Couture white linen pants, and golden beaded Indian slippers. Ropes of bracelets snaked her arms. She looked about thirty years old, and was vaguely familiar.

The woman waved once. Kiley turned to look behind her, but there was no one else there. She turned back. Then, like some parody of an espionage movie, the woman edged behind the eucalyptus tree closest to Kiley and crooked a finger slyly in her direction.

Before Kiley could stop herself, she laughed out loud. She had no idea what was going on, but whatever it was seemed ridiculous. What the hell; she was at the Brentwood Hills Country Club. It couldn't hurt to just talk to the woman. She went over and introduced herself.

“I'm Kiley McCann. I don't know you, do I?”

The woman looked right, then left. “Beth Paulson. You're a nanny, right?”

“Right,” Kiley acknowledged. Beth reached out a perfectly
manicured hand with OPI ballet-slipper pink nails for Kiley to shake.

“Do you know who I am?” Beth asked.

“You look kind of familiar,” Kiley admitted, “but sorry, no.”

“The Dispatcher?
On FX?” Beth prompted.

“Umm …” Kiley was a little embarrassed to admit that back in Wisconsin, her family didn't have cable because they couldn't afford it. “Umm … I can't say I've ever watched. Do you have something to do with that show?”

Beth giggled. “It's the highest-rated show on cable right now. About a nine-one-one dispatcher who gets psychic flashes about her calls?”

Now that Kiley thought about it, she had vaguely heard of the show; maybe it had been mentioned on
Entertainment Tonight
or something like that.

“I play the dispatcher,” Beth explained. “My husband, Dirk, is executive producer. So, Kiley. Lovely name.” She offered Kiley a radiant smile, showing off the perfect, Chiclet-white teeth that screamed “porcelain veneers at a thousand dollars a tooth!” “Who are you working for?”

“Evelyn Bowers. You probably don't know her, she's a pub—”

Beth exploded in laughter. “Evelyn Bowers? That nut job?”

“I don't know if she's a nut job.” Kiley found herself defending her boss, which was ridiculous because, in fact, Kiley
did
think Evelyn was a nut job, but it didn't really seem right to dis the woman who employed her.

“I have a feeling you're being kind. Evelyn is famous here for abusing her nannies.”

Huh. Kiley hadn't known that, obviously.

“The whole membership here knows Evelyn. She does
publicity for the tobacco industry, do you know that? How can she even sleep at night?”

Good point. On the other hand, growing up, Kiley had heard over and over again from her mom: if you don't have something nice to say about someone, keep your mouth shut. So she kept her mouth shut.

“What's it like working for her?” Beth prompted.

“It's … okay.”

Beth gave Kiley a knowing look. “You haven't been with her for very long, have you.”

Kiley allowed as how that was true.

“In the past three months, that woman has gone through six nannies—and those are only the ones I know about! They all either quit or got fired within a week or two.”

Kiley bit her Bonne Bell Lip Smackered lip nervously. “I didn't know that.”

Beth nodded. “It's so smart of you to look around before the situation gets totally out of control. I've heard stories…. Well, it's just really bad.”

Kiley was still stuck on the “It's so smart of you to look around” part of what Beth had said. “Did you think that I'm looking for a job?” she asked.

Beth pushed her gold-rimmed Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses higher up on her head. “Everyone knows that nannies looking to jump stand in the breezeway holding a tall iced tea.”

Kiley was in a state of shock. “They do? I mean … I, uh …” She had no idea what to say. So
that
was why Lydia had told her to stand there with drink in hand. “Well, you sure turned up fast. I just got here.”

“Lucky me!” Beth chirped. “The only reason I'm looking is because my nanny of three years just eloped and moved to Vegas.”

“I worked for Platinum,” Kiley heard herself pitching.

“That was you?” Beth grabbed Kiley's wrist. “Oh my God, I know all about you. Platinum told everyone about her perfect nanny—before they carted her away to rehab, anyway. You're hired—”

“Hold it,” Kiley forced herself to say. “It's not… that simple. We need to talk.”

“Well, of course. Can I bring my husband into the conversation? He just came off the golf course; he's probably having a drink in the clubhouse. Let me call him.”

Without waiting for Kiley to give the okay, she pressed the walkie-talkie feature on her Nokia cell phone that seemingly materialized out of nowhere. Five minutes later, a handsome Asian American guy—this was a surprise to Kiley, though she realized quickly that she shouldn't have automatically assumed Beth's husband would be white—with a shaved head and the build of an athlete stepped into the breezeway. She could see a platinum Rolex gleaming on his wrist as took his hands out of his khaki pockets.

“Down here, honey,” Beth called.

Dirk Paulson looked genuinely happy to see his wife; he kissed her cheek. “Hey, sweetie.”

Beth quickly filled Dirk in on possibly hiring Kiley as their nanny.

Dirk nodded. “Sounds good. What would you like to know about us?”

“Um … how many children do you have?”

“Just one,” Beth replied. “She's a sweetheart. Her name is Grace. We named her after the church where we got married.”

Kiley was impressed. “How old is she?”

“Eleven. She's such a sweet kid. Gets along with everyone, Girl Scout troop star, straight-A student, ace soccer player,” Beth went on. “You can meet her; she's at the arts and crafts center right now.”

“She's also quite a terrific young sculptor,” Dirk chimed in proudly.

Kiley didn't know what to say. She was, frankly, dazzled. Was it possible that she had just lucked into what was apparently the most stable family in Los Angeles? Long-married parents who loved and respected each other, with only one child, named after their church. This was so different from Platinum or from Evelyn Bowers, so different from the Goldhagens or even Lydia's aunt and her partner.

Here in the divorce capital of the universe, Beth and Dirk were apparently a revelation from heaven.

“I'm interested,” Kiley confessed. “But there are some … issues to work out, I think.”

Dirk smiled. “With Evelyn Bowers? Don't worry, Kiley First of all, if the issues are financial, whatever she's paying you, we'll beat it by a hundred bucks per week. If there's anything else, we've got it covered, too. Sometimes these situations require the new family to compensate the old family if there's been any financial, er, investment.”

Better and better.

“Where do you guys live?” Kiley asked.

“Well, I have to admit I saw you out at the pool with Kat Chandler's nanny,” Beth confessed. “Are you friends with her?”

“She's one of my best friends in Los Angeles, actually.”

Beth and Dirk smiled at each other. “We don't know Kat and her partner very well, but we definitely know what they drive,” Dirk said.

Beth gave her husband an arch look. “Dirk, stop being so cryptic. Kiley definitely is in luck.” She smiled at Kiley. “You see, we live two houses down the canyon from Kat and Anya.”

“Hi. Remember me?”

Lydia looked up from the issue of
Vogue
that she'd purloined from the ladies' room in the main dining room to see the cute golf pro from Costa Rica, Luis what-was-his-name. He was dressed in the same regulation club golf shirt as the day before, this time with sparkling white trousers.

She smiled. “Sure do. But let me put on my sunglasses before your pants blind me.”

Luis indicated the chaise longue where Kiley had been sitting before she'd gone off to the breezeway. Lydia peeked over toward the breezeway again, where Kiley was deep in conversation with a blond woman and an Asian man. Then her eyes slid to the kids in the pool, all blessedly occupied with their water basketball.

Lydia was a girl who knew the fine art of listening in on
others' conversations without seeming to do it. She'd picked up the scuttlebutt around the club—the breezeway was the place where prospective employers could poach possible nannies who were unhappy with their current employers, and where unhappy nannies could go to be poached. In other words, it was the nanny-employer version of a pickup bar. Not that Lydia had ever been to a pickup bar. But she'd read a great exposé on one in
Cosmo
the year before.

She didn't tell Kiley this—she didn't want to give her a chance to back out. Sometimes, a friend had to do for another friend what that friend wouldn't do for herself.

Luis perched on the end of Kiley's chaise. “When am I going to be able to get you out on the golf course?”

She studied him a moment. “Well, it's a little tempting, in that you are very good-looking,” she admitted. “However, I'd prefer to stare at you at an alternate locale.”

Luis laughed. “I'm flattered. I think. Anyway, golf is one of the world's great games.”

Lydia shook her head. “I don't think so. Who'd want to chase a little white ball around a park when they could just walk in that park wherever they wanted to go?”

“What would you prefer to do?”

“During the day? Make money. During the night?” She shrugged. “Use your imagination.”

“I don't need to,” Luis told her. “You're a beautiful girl. All I have to do is look at you. Who needs imagination?”

“A girl who chewed roasted bugs as snacks,” she replied, quite honestly.

He made a face. “You chew—?”

“In a previous incarnation,” she told him, not wanting to delve into her past. She glanced over at the pool again. Happy, playing kiddies. If only her job could be like this all the time. “So, Luis. Where were we?”

He cocked his head at her, a bemused look on his face. “So, besides ingesting cockroaches, what else do you like to do?”

Lydia stretched lazily, the Ralph Lauren bikini showcasing all the right places. “Lots of things. Clubbing, driving fast.”

Luis grinned. “A girl after my own heart. What do you drive?”

Why did the boy want
details?

“A cherry red Lamborghini,” she replied.

Luis's eyes lit up. “You have a—”

“No,” she confessed. “That would be in my dreams. Stuck here in the real world, the truth is … I don't actually have a car. I'm looking for one, though.”

“Really,” Luis said. “What are you in the market for? What's your price range?”

Lydia shifted uncomfortably on the chaise. “Um … that would be between free and … free?”

He laughed, and she swatted at his bicep. “I'm a nanny, for God's sake. I don't make any money. I'll settle for anything that runs.”

Luis folded his arms. Lydia couldn't help noticing how nicely his biceps bulged. “I think you might be in luck.”

“How so?”

“I just won a tournament in Las Vegas—satellite tour, not the real PGA, but the first-place prize was a car plus some money. So I've got this brand-new Toyota MR2 Spyder.”

“And you're giving it to me?” Lydia squealed, even though she had zero idea what a Toyota MR2 Spyder looked like.

He put his hands over his heart. “Ouch. Sorry, no, I can't. But—”

“But what?” Lydia demanded. “I'm very happy for your new driving experience, but it doesn't help mine any.”

He ran a hand across his cleft chin. “Tell you what. I'll give you a ride. And we can talk about your ‘driving experience.’”

“If you let me drive it too, it's a deal,” she said.

Luis stuck out his hand for Lydia to shake. “Deal.”

“Great.” Lydia didn't mention that she'd only been driving for approximately two hours, and that those two hours had taken place that very morning. She also didn't mention that she had a boyfriend. It wasn't as if she and Luis were going out on a
date.
“When?”

“What are you doing this evening?” Luis asked. “Say … around eight?”

Lydia thought for a moment. Work ended for her that day at 7:30 p.m. Billy had to work overtime. Again. Which meant her schedule was wide open.

“Around eight, I'd say you're picking me up in your hot new wheels,” Lydia told him.

“Excellent,” he agreed. “We'll drive by my place—”

She made a time-out T with her hands. “Hold on, buddy. How did we get from my place to your place so fast?”

“I meant behind my place,” Luis explained. “There's something I want to show you. I promise to keep both hands on the wheel at all times.”

All righty, then. He'd pick her up at eight.

The ride across the island of Jamaica had been hellacious, because there hadn't been a helicopter available on short notice
that could carry five adults and four children. Instead, Steven and Diane had chartered a minivan with a Jamaican driver for the day; the concierge at Northern Look had assured them that the trek to the south coast of the island, to a place called St. Catherine, would take only a couple of hours.

This trip had been completely unplanned. However, when Steven and Diane had awakened that morning, they'd turned on a local radio station on their Bang & Olufsen clock radio. Between reggae songs, the deejay had done an on-air promotion for something called the Jamaican Sugarcane Cutting Championships, to take place that afternoon in this place called St. Catherine, at a cricket field (cricket was the most popular sport in Jamaica after soccer) converted into a festival grounds.

Steven and Diane immediately decided that this would be a fun way to spend the day; the Silversteins had agreed without hesitation … which was why Esme had to endure a nausea-inducing, bumpy ride from the north coast up through the hills, past the crowded, poor town of Moneague and the teeming Linstead market, and then down into Spanish Town and the sprawling St. Catherine Parish. The one saving grace to the ride was that the minivan had a DVD player. Esme had thought to borrow
The Karate Kid
and
Brother Bear
from the Northern Look collection before they departed. Though Ham and his brother clamored for
Mortal Kombat
, the DVDs kept the noise in the back of the van down to a manageable level.

It wasn't hard to find the sugarcane cutting competition: there were dozens of hand-drawn signs on the main road that led to the cricket pitch. The driver parked their van in a crowded, muddy parking lot, and the whole group of nine trooped to the stadium gate. This was nothing like Dodger Stadium, Esme saw
as she approached. It was more like a high school football field, with two sets of bleachers and a high fence that circled the field. As they neared the gate, city buses from the capital city of Kingston were disgorging hundreds of passengers who'd decided to make a day trip of it.

“Be careful with the children,” Diane cautioned Esme, who was grasping Weston with one hand and Easton with the other. Esme was trying to work up the nerve to ask Diane if she really had to watch the Silverstein kids all the time. She'd been thinking about it ever since she'd met the little brats, but she'd been too afraid to say anything. Well, she was
still
afraid. But she was beginning to deeply resent the patently unfair situation. No one had asked her; it had just been expected. The Silverstein kids were much more than double her workload.

Esme cleared her throat. “Diane, I was wondering if we could talk.”

“Sure,” Diane said easily.

Esme's heart pounded. She took a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. “Well, I was wondering if I have to be responsible for watching Ham and Miles too? I mean, I will if I have—”

Diane cut her off with a wave of her hand. “Of course not. Actually, I was thinking about broaching this myself and it just slipped my mind. Now that I have a chance to think about it, it was very unfair what we did to you, saddling you with Erin and Peter's children.”

Esme was shocked that Diane had already come to the same conclusion. On the other hand, it struck her as ironic that talking about it had “slipped Diane's mind.” While it meant a lot to Esme, it wasn't much more than an afterthought to Diane.

“I've seen how Miles and Ham act,” Diane continued.
“They're brats. They don't respect you, they don't respect us, and they don't respect themselves. To tell you the truth, I'm ashamed that Erin and Peter would drink mojitos on the beach while their children are such an embarrassment. Most of all, I don't like the way they influence the girls' behavior.”

Esme nodded, but didn't chime in with her heartfelt agreement. It was one thing for Diane to insult the children of her friends, and quite another for the nanny to do so.

Diane put her hand atop Esme's. “In fact, you'd be doing me a favor if you'd keep my girls away from those boys.”

Excellent.

“Will do,” Esme agreed.

They reached the turnstiles to the cricket field. Steven bought tickets for everyone; then they were inside.

What a scene. On a stage by the scoreboard, a reggae band pounded out an infectious beat. In a circle around the field, there were dozens of booths set up, selling everything from colorful pastel paintings and hand-whittled masks to bottles of Red Stripe and fresh vegetable patties filled with well-seasoned callaloo. There were hordes of children gathered around games of chance and a face-painting booth; the minute Weston and Easton spotted the face painting, they clamored to have their faces decorated by the young Jamaican woman who was deftly stroking her brush on the children's cheeks.

“Go ahead,” Steven told her. “We'll be …”

He looked around and saw a fenced-in area not far from where they'd come into the cricket grounds. It separated some tables with tablecloths from the rest of the festival. The people inside the fence were of mixed ethnicities—brown, white,
black—as opposed to the crowd out here in the festival area itself, which was 99.9 percent black.

“Over there,” he continued, and checked his watch. “How about in an hour?”

“Sounds good,” Esme told him. Now that she had to look after only Easton and Weston, she felt positively giddy.

“Have fun,” Steven said, and took out his wallet. “Here's some money. Keep a close eye on the girls; this is a madhouse. Bye, girls!”

He kissed his daughters, pressed some bills into Esme's hand, and waved goodbye. As soon as he was gone, the girls again begged to have their faces painted. Esme grinned. She couldn't wait to see how the girls' faces would turn out. Not only that, she was free of Ham and Miles. Not just for the rest of the stay in Jamaica, but forever.

While Weston and Easton sat happily on two low stools in the face-painting booth, attended to by the Jamaican girl who'd agreed to do them both at the same time and sworn to keep them chained to their chairs for the duration of their art project, Esme wandered over to a small exhibit directly next to her booth that explained the history of the sugar crop in Jamaica and the process by which it was harvested. She'd had no idea it was such strenuous work. Though machines did some of it, much of the Jamaican cane harvest was still done by hand, by incredibly strong men wielding machetes that were as thick as their forearms. Evidently, the night before the cane was cut, the fields were set on fire—the idea was to burn off the leaves and the outer coating of the cane plants, which grew eight
to ten feet high. The fires burned hot and quick, leaving the cane behind.

The next day, the men moved through the fields, followed by flatbed pickup trucks, to gather the cut cane. Each man, if he was skilled enough and strong enough, could cut upwards of fifteen tons of cane a day. The work was backbreaking and dirty, all the more so because the night's fire left a sooty coating on the remaining cane. Yet the men would compete fiercely to cut the most cane, and they were paid by the weight of the cane they did cut. Today, the best cutter of the year would be honored; the award came with a five-thousand-dollar bonus prize.

At the far end of the exhibit were some sugarcane stalks and an actual machete, so that festival-goers could get a sense of what it was like to actually wield the blade and slash through some cane.

“You want to try?” A smiling man wearing jeans and nothing else—no shoes, no hat, no nothing—offered the machete to Esme. From the soot on his skin, Esme realized that he was one of the cane cutters. “It's good exercise,” he told her in a lilting Jamaican accent, a huge grin splitting his dark face.

Esme snuck a glance back at the girls. Their faces were nearly done. “No, sorry, I've got to check on my kids,” she confessed.